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<DIV><SPAN class=090232816-04052004>I feel any statistics are irrelevant.
I started my first Camino alone and met three other people along the way and we
all finished in Santiago together. I had made the walk for (my) spiritual
reason, one of the others was a devout Catholic who made the trip for religious
reason, the third was a self confessed communist (past tense anyway) who never
stated his reason for the pilgrimage and the fourth said she was an atheist but
was trying to sort out her life. All of us received Compostela although I
don't know what the others told the girls at the pilgrim office; (I said
spiritual). We're all still friends and met up as regularly as possible in
London.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=090232816-04052004></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=090232816-04052004>Jim</SPAN></DIV>
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<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader lang=en-us dir=ltr align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B> Road to Santiago
Pilgrimage [mailto:GOCAMINOaPETE.URI.EDU] <B>On Behalf Of </B>Howard
Mendes<BR><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, May 04, 2004 8:18 PM<BR><B>To:</B>
GOCAMINOaPETE.URI.EDU<BR><B>Subject:</B> Re: why matamoros, at
all<BR><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>In a message dated 05/04/04 12:46:50 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
BlaroliaAOL.COM writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT
face=arial,helvetica><FONT lang=0 face="Palatino Linotype" FAMILY="SERIF"
PTSIZE="10">As the statistics repeatedly show, about 95% of Camino
pilgrims undertake the pilgrimage, the goal of which lies in the Cathedral
of Santiago, for religious reasons</FONT></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#0080c0>Everyone knows that this statistic is
unreliable because the Church won't give the Compostela to you unless you tell
them what they want to hear. Also, noone keeps accurate statistics on
those who do only portions of the Camino and do not reach Santiago. You
can believe what you want, but most of the pilgrims I met were not there
solely for religious reasons. HM,
NYC</FONT></STRONG></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>